The Secret to Streaming Ad ROI: It’s All About Audience

From music to television, movies to live sports, streaming has become one of the most common avenues for consuming media online. At least 85 percent of U.S. households currently pay for at least one subscription-based streaming service, and many homes stack multiple streaming services on top of one another—even in addition to their cable TV service.

This widespread embrace of streaming is great news for advertisers, and especially small businesses looking for cost-effective ways to build their brand through in-stream advertising. As streaming has expanded, so have advertising inventories, creating many new opportunities for businesses to purchase valuable ad space at a price they can afford.

Meanwhile, the ROI of video advertising is undeniable. Consider the following:

• The average consumer remembers 95 percent of the messaging after watching a video ad;
• At least 50 percent of consumers want to see video from relevant brands;
• A positive video ad experience can boost brand association by 139 percent.

For many aspiring streaming advertisers, there’s only one catch: with so many streaming services and inventories to consider, choosing the right approach to building a campaign can be overwhelming. How can you create a streaming ad campaign and have confidence that you’ve positioned that campaign to drive strong ROI?

That’s where Cox Media can help.

But first – we know there is a seemingly endless list of terms and acronyms that go hand-in-hand with understanding the streaming television space. Access our free, comprehensive glossary here.

Avoiding Decision Fatigue When Choosing a Streaming Service

As you plan out your first video streaming ad campaign, the options can be overwhelming. Along with major streaming giants that have become household names, there are dozens of other streaming services to choose from—each with its own unique advertising platform.

At the same time, the number of ad-supported streaming options are growing. Even major streaming brands like Netflix have recently introduced ad-supported subscriptions that insert paid ads into content in exchange for a lower monthly price. Make no mistake, this is a good thing for your business: a larger market for ad inventories will ultimately improve your campaign’s ROI potential.

Still, it can be difficult to see the benefits of seemingly endless advertising options when you’re paralyzed with uncertainty about where to start. Even when ad inventories are available at a bargain, your business has limited resources to plan, launch and test campaigns. You can’t afford to test-and-iterate endlessly—your business needs quick results to generate revenue and justify your ad investment.

That’s why we recommend working your way backward. Instead of choosing a streaming platform and then targeting an audience within it, you can save time and money by defining the audience—and then identifying the streaming service or services best-suited to reaching them.

How Do You Define Your Campaign’s ‘Target Audience’?

Defining your target audience isn’t only a good first step for your video ad campaigns. It’s an important step in building successful digital ad campaigns across any channel.

The best advertising is tailored to a specific audience and its pain points. Even when businesses cater to multiple audience segments, each campaign should be targeted to one specific group to maximize engagement and relevance. The difference with streaming ads is that, once your audience is defined, the accessibility of that audience across various streaming options may make it easier to hone in on a shortlist of best-fit streaming platforms.

We recommend using customer personas to craft a story about the type of audience your business is targeting. That persona can then be your guide as you use platform-based audience targeting filters to refine your advertising inventory options based on audience demographic data, platform-specific behavioral data—such as the types of content being streamed—and additional targeting filters, such as the type of device used to stream digital content.

This audience-first approach will bring your ad campaign into greater focus, accelerate testing and optimization, and simplify the daunting task of sorting through endless streaming possibilities.

Aligning Your Audience, Goals and Advertising Mix

Streaming video is a powerful advertising tool that makes sense for almost any type of business. But no single advertising channel offers a magic bullet in achieving your brand’s advertising goals. The best results are always achieved through a multi-channel strategy oriented around shared goals and cost-optimized spending.

The challenge of creating a balanced, ROI-optimized ad campaign is where many businesses realize the value of working with a digital advertising partner. At Cox Media, we can help streamline and accelerate your streaming video ad campaigns while integrating them seamlessly into a broader digital ad strategy.

Find out how our advertising experience and expertise can save your business time and money while elevating your campaign ROI—contact us today to learn more.